After her studies at
Swarthmore College, where she graduated with Honors, Marga Jann went to the Columbia University
Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, where she won a Kinne Fellowship
for travel abroad and a Lowenfish Prize for the best terminal design project,
obtaining her M.Arch. She was a research scholar at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA)-UP6, Paris, holds a MSt in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (Architecture and Engineering) from the University of Cambridge, was
a Fulbright professor to South Asia and is a Fulbright Scholar to Haiti and the Caribbean this year.

She spent two years working with Gwathmey Siegel Architects at Carnegie Hall,
where she worked on several private Long Island residences and a large
dormitory for Columbia University, leaving New York for Krakow and Paris on a
French Govt Grant/Fulbright Fellowship. In Krakow she started the firm Poetic
License (International Architecture & Design Collaborative) / PLI which she continued
while a research fellow at l'ENSBA (Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts)/UP6 in Paris. She has lectured
on her work and been a guest juror at numerous universities throughout the world and
coordinated for several years the Department of Environmental
Design + Interior Architecture at Parsons School of Design in Paris. More recently, she has taught design
studios at l'ENPC (Ponts et Chaussées), Sciences Po's "Cycle d'Urbanisme"
(Paris), Stanford University in California, and Stanford's Overseas Studies Program
in Paris, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Sri Lanka, an associate professor of architecture at Judson U (outside Chicago), an adjunct associate professor at U Hawaii (D.Arch. program), and a visiting professor to Duksung U, Seoul, Korea, where she worked on live projects for the U.S. Embassy and Seoul Museum of History, as well as an eco-friendly village in Fiji with both U.H. and Duksung students. In spring 2009 she taught at the European University of Lefke, Cyprus, and more recently as associate professor at Girne American U, Cyprus and Canterbury, England; sabbatical research topics include the architecture and development of divided nations, sustainable design for climate change, and architectural education. Marga has been a visiting scholar at Cambridge (Wolfson College), a visiting professor to Uganda Martyrs University, an associate professor at Chaminade U of Honolulu (Environmental + Interior Design) where she remains an adjunct professor, and a visiting fellow at Lucy Cavendish College/Centre of Development Studies, U Cambridge. More recently she has been (or is) an affiliate member of Cambridge's Centre of African Studies, a visiting research fellow in Urban/Cultural Sociology & Sustainable Design at Cambridge, an associate researcher at Energy@Cambridge & Cambridge's Big Data, a visiting associate professor of architecture at the University of the Bahamas and a visiting professor at the Facultad de Arquitectura | USFX, Sucre, Bolivia. Last year she was a Fulbright Fellow to Quisqueya U, Haiti and a Fulbright Regional Travel Grantee to Barbados and Jamaica. She currently serves as Professor and Chair of the Dept of Architectural Engineering at the American University of Kurdistan in tandem with her ongoing visiting research fellowship at U Cambridge.

Her clients have included the International Council of Museums at UNESCO, for
which she worked on museum projects in Kuwait and Cairo, the United States
Embassy and Ambassador in Paris and Moscow, the US Consulate in Krakow, and
the New York State Department of Education. Her work includes numerous schools,
hotels, cafés, private residences, interiors, social housing projects,
French competition winners, office buildings, and charitable projects in the
developing world, often done in the context of academe where they serve as
models for social entrepreneurship and sustainability. These "live" projects employ universities as interdisciplinary service-based "community design centers", offering students early "hands-on" experience. Her international background has facilitated
her working in cultures as diverse as Nigeria, Russia, and Mexico. She also
comes from a background in dance, cinema, and painting, which
lends Poetic License some of its unique character. Marga is a member of Architects Without Borders.